Posts Tagged ‘anne-marie voorhoewe’

I would like to share with you the outcome of one of our first MeshWorks application at the large scale which you can read here.

Given the nature of our emerging problems, we are seeing Problems “G” and even Problems “H” that require what we call Second Tier Conditions which, in turn, will require systems “T” and even solutions “U.” This use of many of the HU-Turquoise thought structures will be without the heavy metaphysical elements that many are now relying on, for good reason to them. I will write on that situation a bit later, because it is so clear what is happening in “spiritual” communities as they are now talking about “culture” and even values systems. Amazing.

As more and more functions in this country, at least, are moving into a situation where “the government” is beginning to own many of our resources that were once in the domain of the invisible hand of the free market, this means that new criteria for complex decision-making will require new processes. We will, at first, bring back the old wineskins to deal with the new wine, but they will leak. We have yet to create these new wineskins. We will soon describe MeshWorks Solutions in greater detail, along with Transpartisan methodologies.

Of course, Clare Graves predicted all of this in his rather innocent title to his 1974 article in The Futurist
publication of the World Future Society, “Human Nature Prepares for a Momentous Leap.” That statement, in itself, caused me to make contact with Professor Graves because I knew intuitively that here was something unique and powerful. I could not put that concern into words, but I acted anyway. I doubt if any of us would have heard of Graves otherwise. I once asked him when this sort of thing would be required, did he have a time frame, and he responded: “Well, Don, no, I can’t tell you when but you will know when it happens. You will feel it for sure.”

I feel it now for sure, as are many of you. Many are constructing global-wide happenings, or gatherings that bring together the “wise ones” – usually those in the elite Orange-Green “enlightened” league who will meet in circles, express individual perspectives, “view with alarm,” and then begin to generate a list of things to do which, alas, are based on certain assumptions regarding the capacity of people and their habitats to actually do things. We will see these meetings proliferate all over the place and that is a good thing, of course.

Yet, I have a strong sense that these collective processes, as in Theory U and others, will be unable to get to the core problems and solutions.

For example, the same group that was so proud of the role it played in the scenario process in the early 1990s in South Africa have now returned because their processes simply found ways for the privileged few who had tickets to the negotiation table to enrich themselves. The needs of the vast population were not met in housing, education, health care, and standards of living.

Reality has now returned after the euphoria of the bloodless “revolution” and the magic of Mandela, as the crime rate has escalated and political instability appears to be on the horizon. The African National Congress has now split into two camps and will be warring against each other. Unhappily, I had in my mind’s eye the image of the sinking of the Titanic as the wealthy class climbed on the life boats but the “second class” were locked down in steerage class and could not escape.

That thought and image continue to haunt me. It spells “revolution” in no uncertain terms and I wonder if we are seeing the evidence of that also in the violence in Greece. I don’t think all of that is about the death of a 14-year old boy. And, have you seen the new taxes in New York which will be put on the population, much like a taxation without representation from an earlier day in our history. An 18% tax on a soft drink? Wow! And on bottled water?

I believe we are at a major tipping point. Our financial systems are presently frozen because, among other things, the lack of trust, the high levels of deceit and corruption, dirty money, and the repression of technologies that need to be released. Clearly our entire educational complex needs to do some serious soul searching. We still have options but they will come at a price.

Either we step over into a new paradigm or we hang back with at least one foot in the old one, often because of our financial need and fears, and our lack of being able to answer the question: Change FROM what but TO what?

We all know that President-Elect Obama can’t walk on water, in spite of some expectations, but come January 21 he, too, will confront a reality. I see some evidence of complex thinking in him in how he has selected cabinet members and even presenters at the Inaugural event on January 20. That is reassuring to me but I’m no fool when it comes to national politics and, of course, the media. We probably should invest in concession stands in Washington, DC because I have an idea the mall will be full of demonstrations on the part of people and groups who have had their expectations raised for a better life, only to have them dashed by the spring or summer.

We have inherited and, to some extent, benefited from a “bubble economy” in that worth and value were not connected to the “reality economy.” We were trading in hypes. This has been so clear in Iceland where our SDi colleague Bjärni Jonsson and others are really struggling to find a new basis for survival in that difficult place. It was all “bubble.”

Solutions will come out of families, communities, counties, churches, and other groupings and will ultimately reach state-wide and country-wide domains. This is the revolution that needs to happen. Our current system simply cannot be reformed. It is passing away quickly and short term fixes only waste precious resources on a sinking ship.

What kind of future do you think our post-teen kids are seeing for themselves? That age group in Chile has come up with a novel approach based on what they call the Penguin Revolution. Apparently, the high schoolers virtually shut down the schools recently and because their uniforms looked like Penguins, they were identified as the Penguin Generation. We have early plans to respond to that fear and desperation as soon as we can.

The world, now, is full of unique “change” opportunities if we just had the wisdom and resources to respond to them. They are everywhere.

In any case, there are tough decisions just ahead and we might as well get ourselves ready to play a positive role. People know that I am a very positive person with great optimism for the future, but I also have a historic memory of the Great Depression in the 1930s because of stories my parents and grandparents used to tell me. To his dying day my dad would NEVER use a credit card for anything other short-term needs. He would only pay cash for a new motor car, and simply had no debt.

It is within this context that new decision-making models MUST and WILL appear; at least, they will be generated by these Life Conditions, and it will be up to leadership, if we have any today, to see the opportunities, grasp the moment, and be courageous enough to enter the fray. And we must be in a position to get involved ourselves. Maybe things are not yet bad enough while we enter the festive season, but if the Dow reached 500 sometime in ’09 we would all feel the pain.

It might take that, alas.

This is why I want to applaud the Center for Human Emergence in the Netherlands, for Peter Merry and Anne-Marie Voorhoewe for their leadership, and for the role of others to push ahead with the new models, usually against both political correctness and vested interests, even in the NGO and governmental worlds.

It is also timely that Dr. Marilyn Hamilton’s new book on the Integral City is now in the marketplace since so much of it reflects this new model, especially, the MeshWorks design and implementation.

No one can predict the future, or identify the most probable trend-lines, but we can certainly begin, now, to prepare ourselves to respond to any contingency.

It makes no use to play the “blame and be blamed game,” or even the false security assumptions behind gated communities with a “live and let live” philosophy.

Only the values and methods of the “thrive and help thrive” mentality can see us through. MeshWorks is one of those processes.